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When do you use the imperfect tense and how do you form it?

There are two forms of the past tense in Spanish - the preterite and the imperfect. This explanation will explain the imperfect tense.

When do you use the imperfect tense?

1) Describing Things. When describing something from the past such as a holiday or an old house. e.g. The food at the restaurant was incredible. (La comida en el restaurante era increíble.)

2) Used To. When talking about things that used to be true. e.g. I used to have blonde hair. (En el pasado tenía el pelo rubio.)
3) Repeated Actions. When talking about things you did on a regular basis in the past. e.g. I ate chocolate every day. (Comía chocolate cada día.)

How do you form the imperfect tense?

Like other tenses you will have learnt, the imperfect tense is conjugated depending on the ending of the verb and the subject of the verb.

Step one:Decide whether the infinitive form of the verb (the word that you will find in the dictionary, e.g. to eat - comer) and identify if it is an -AR, -ER or -IR verb. You can tell this by the ending.
Step two:Take off the -ar/-er/-ir ending and add the correct ending from the table below. The ending will depend on who is doing the verb. I.e. If it was 'she used to eat' you would take the -er ending for the he/she/it form.
Note that the endings for -er and -ir verbs are the same.